Specialty Insurance Product Owner (Consultant)

If you’re passionate about helping people protect what matters most to them at a Fortune 100 company with nearly $70 billion in annual sales, as well as innovating and simplifying processes and operations to provide the best customer value, then Nationwide’s Property and Casualty team could be the place for you! At Nationwide®, “on your side” goes beyond just words. Our customers and partners are at the center of everything we do and we’re looking for associates who are passionate about delivering extraordinary care.
The Specialty Insurance Product Owner, Management Liability Specialty Operations, is accountable for maximizing the value of products and capabilities supporting MLS operations and related specialty insurance areas. The role may span MLS, including Surety Bonds, Credit and Political Risk, and other related product areas.
The Product Owner partners with business leaders, operations teams, broker/agent partners, customers, underwriters, technology, data, compliance, and other stakeholders to translate business needs into a prioritized roadmap, quality releases, and measurable business outcomes. This role is comfortable creating clarity from ambiguity, making informed decisions with incomplete information, and balancing customer value, operational effectiveness, risk, compliance, budget, and technical feasibility.
Key Responsibilities
Product strategy, roadmap ownership, and market awareness
Define and maintain the product vision, roadmap, priorities, and desired outcomes for assigned capabilities.
Develop a strong understanding of MLS Operations, related product areas, users, workflows, pain points, market needs, and applicable regulatory or control considerations.
Engage business stakeholders, operations teams, customers, broker/agent partners, and other users to validate problems, gather feedback, and define measurable outcomes.
Monitor competitors, market trends, and evolving capabilities to help MLS remain relevant and keep pace in the marketplace.
Identify opportunities to improve customer experience, operational effectiveness, decision support, automation, data quality, and controls.
Backlog, delivery, and distribution partnership
Own and prioritize the product backlog in JIRA, including epics, features, user stories, acceptance criteria, dependencies, risks, and release targets.
Translate complex business processes and rules into clear requirements that delivery teams can execute.
Partner with technology, architecture, engineering, QA, data, security, operations, and vendors through refinement, development, testing, release, adoption, and production support.
Provide timely decisions, clarifications, and trade-off recommendations to maintain delivery momentum and avoid rework.
Confirm that completed work meets acceptance criteria, intended outcomes, and release-readiness expectations.
Use AI tools responsibly to accelerate discovery, analysis, documentation, story development, test design, and other product activities while protecting confidential information.
Use prototypes, workflow mockups, wireframes, process concepts, and rapid experimentation to validate ideas before significant delivery investment.
Build effective relationships with distribution partners and involve them early in discovery to validate proposed workflows and capabilities.
Design and coordinate pilot testing with selected distribution partners when appropriate; establish clear objectives and success criteria, gather structured feedback, and incorporate feasible enhancements before broader release.
Business cases, budget, and outcomes
Identify opportunities and develop business cases for review and submission, clearly describing the problem or opportunity, recommended approach, expected value, measurable benefits, investment and resource needs, costs, risks, dependencies, and implementation considerations.
Partner closely with the Project Manager, SEPM, and Agile Leader to maintain accurate forecasts, monitor expenditures against approved maintenance funding and business-case budgets, address variances, and escalate risks or required decisions promptly.
Define success measures, baselines, key performance indicators, adoption measures, and benefits-realization plans for projects and initiatives.
Showcase and demonstrate measurable outcomes through product demonstrations, stakeholder readouts, dashboards, status reporting, or other appropriate forums.
Risk, governance and continuous improvement
Ensure product decisions and delivery practices account for regulatory obligations, privacy, security, auditability, records, data governance, and enterprise policies.
Partner with compliance, legal, risk, security, architecture, and governance functions to identify and address risks early.
Maintain clear documentation of product decisions, business rules, assumptions, controls, integrations, data flows, business cases, budget status, and outcome results.
Monitor product performance, adoption, customer feedback, defects, operational results, and financial performance; use those insights to guide prioritization and improvement.
Make timely, well-reasoned decisions through ambiguity and escalate material risks while retaining ownership of recommendations and next steps
What You Bring
Experience as a Product Owner, Product Manager, Business Analyst, Application Owner, or similar role in a complex business environment.
Experience working in insurance, financial services, specialty products, operations, underwriting, risk management, or a related domain.
Experience managing a product backlog in JIRA or a comparable Agile delivery tool and writing actionable stories and acceptance criteria.
Experience partnering with technology teams and distribution partners through discovery, delivery, testing, pilot activities, release, adoption, and production support.
Experience developing business cases, defining success measures, tracking budgets, and demonstrating measurable outcomes.
Comfort using AI tools and rapid prototyping techniques with sound judgment regarding accuracy, confidentiality, security, and responsible use.
Ability to make decisions and move work forward through ambiguity, evolving requirements, competing priorities, and imperfect information.
Strong analytical, facilitation, communication, organization, and stakeholder-influence skills.
Ability to balance customer experience, business value, operational practicality, risk, compliance, budget, and technical feasibility.
Ability to influence outcomes without direct authority in a matrixed environment.
Bachelor’s degree in business, information technology, computer science, insurance, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
Preferred Qualifications
Experience with specialty insurance, enterprise platforms, workflow automation, APIs, integrations, decision-support tools, or data-intensive applications.
Experience with Agile, Scrum, Kanban, Lean, product discovery, design thinking, or hybrid delivery models.
Experience with customer research, usability testing, service design, journey mapping, or process improvement.
Experience defining product metrics, dashboards, adoption measures, service-level measures, or business cases.
Familiarity with AI-enabled workflows, responsible AI practices, rapid prototyping tools, or automation concepts.
Measures of Success
The roadmap and backlog reflect clear business outcomes, customer needs, market awareness, risk considerations, dependencies, and measurable value.
Delivery teams have the clarity, context, decisions, acceptance criteria, and stakeholder access needed to deliver quality outcomes.
Releases are appropriately tested, piloted when warranted, informed by distribution-partner feedback, and ready for adoption and production support.
Approved maintenance and business-case budgets are accurately forecasted, actively monitored, and managed within approved funding.
Product performance, adoption, customer feedback, defects, and business outcomes are measured and used to guide investment and prioritization decisions.
Project and initiative goals are demonstrated through measurable results, stakeholder reporting, and benefits-realization evidence.
Product decisions are timely, transparent, evidence-informed, and appropriately documented.
AI, prototyping, and continuous improvement practices accelerate learning while managing confidentiality, security, compliance, and operational risk.
Role Expectations
A successful Product Owner is curious about the business, close to users, comfortable with technology, and accountable for outcomes beyond delivery alone. They bring structure without unnecessary bureaucracy, communicate directly, test assumptions, collaborate effectively with distribution partners and delivery teams, and know when to decide, experiment, seek input, or escalate.
*This role does not qualify for employer-sponsored work authorization. Nationwide does not participate in the Stem OPT Extension program.*
Job Description Summary
We are a versatile group of individuals, working together to meet the needs of our customers. We value knowledge, strong business savvy and contributing to a stellar team dynamic. If you thrive in a busy, engaging work environment, we want to know more about

Work arrangement
Yes